Visible Items Becoming Unavailable -- Changing at Will

[lennys26]

Very regularly I experience instances where the visibility setting of items in my inventory change visible to unavailable on their own. It is extremely frustrating as, with almost 1000 items , it is only by random chance that I happen to notice when this happens.

I have reported this to Support on multiple occasions over many months, however they offer no assistance, so I am trying to find a pattern or trigger on my own.

Has anyone noticed that when a 'Visible' item gets to '0' stock count, the items goes 'Unavailable'? I have just tested this now and while I can not recreate my issue, it seems that this is common to at least several of the latest batch of 20 or so items that were affected. (To be clear, they were at a '0' count, but not currently).

Thanks in advance.

For what it's worth, I experience both the visibility and the fulfilment options changing on a regular basis. This happens with no involvement of any kind by me. There are many posts over many years about similar events, but nothing posted publicly about any resolutions. 

[Summer2024]

Hi @lennys26 ! 

Sorry for the delay in response here. I have reached out to an ecom specialist to see if they have any insight as to why this keeps happening. 

A setting to check out in the meantime :

From your online dashboard, go to Online > Shared Settings > Item Preferences.  Here you will see all kinds of settings for how items are displayed (or not) in the store.  At the top, in the Item Statuses section, you’ll see a toggle for “Out of stock indicator.”  Toggle this on and the item will still be displayed but it will indicate that it is out of stock.

A little further down in the “Stock settings” section, you’ll see the toggle “Display out of stock items on site.”  Turning this off will cause the online store to NOT display items with no current stock.

Double check these settings and I will get back to you when I hear back from the ecom specialist! 

[lennys26]

Hi @Summer2024,. Thanks for the assistance. These settings are correctly set, although I have specifically set the “Out of stock indicator” to OFF. Because of the way I use my inventory, I have many items with no stock and dont want this so obvious on my main pages. 

Also, just to keep things relevant for other users who may be searching for answers, I am not sure why this was marked as best answer. It is neither a solution nor the end of the investigation. 🙂 As you mentioned, we are still waiting on feedback.

[Summer2024]

@lennys26 

Here's a few things you can also double check as well to make sure there are no other syncing issues: 

1. Confirm Store Information on Online > Settings > General is filled in
2. Confirm there are not multiple categories with the same name
3. Confirm there are not items with the same name
4. Confirm the location type is Physical in the main dashboard Location details
5. Confirm the location has business hours, email, and phone number in the main dashboard Location details
6. Confirm the business address is validated without errors by searching it on this site:  https://www.smarty.com/products/single-address

A few other things to check would be whether you are making updates to the item library via CSV. That could help narrow down the root cause if they are making sure the items are assigned to an active location with fulfillment. basically the only thing that should ever make them switch by themselves is if the item becomes unfulfillable. like if it was pickup only and they turn pickup off, or deactivate the only location it was assigned to with pickup

If after going through this checklist and everything is correct, we will reach out to our engineers to take a deeper look. 

[lennys26]

Hi @Summer2024 . Thanks for the checklist. I have run through it and all is in correct order.

When I make changes they are either through the UI or via CSV. Either way, however, this sync issue happens randomly and without my making any changes what-so-ever. This is to say that the inventory configurations may be correct now, but that does not mean that tomorrow when I wake up they will be the same. 

Feel free to raise this internally, however it will admittedly be difficult for anyone to investigate now. I have raised this issue to Support several times at the moments when I could pinpoint/confirm that the change had taken place within a specific timeframe (hours/days, etc), however Support never was of any assistance. They went so far as to insist that the platform generates no internal logs, so therefore there was nothing to investigate.